PlanScope Blog – Page 86
Practical guides to UK planning applications: which reports your council expects, permitted development, constraints, costs and how to prepare each document.
Articles – page 86
9492 articlesWalkthrough: a listed farmhouse extension and consent
An illustrative run through a Grade II farmhouse extension, from the list entry and statement of significance to curtilage structures, bats in the roof and the two applications.
Reviewing and appealing a CIL liability notice
Community Infrastructure Levy liability has its own review and appeal routes with fixed statutory deadlines and two different decision makers. Starting work closes most of them.
Waste capacity and borough apportionment in London
Policy SI 8 of the London Plan 2021 safeguards existing waste sites and apportions tonnage to each borough. Losing capacity means replacing it, measured at maximum throughput.
Planning fees for new dwellings and the per unit bands
The fee for creating dwellings is charged per unit to a band boundary, then at a lower rate with an overall cap. Outline applications are charged on site area instead.
Air quality evidence when a school is the only receptor
Schools are high sensitivity receptors for nitrogen dioxide and particulates. Receptor height, exposure period and the split between construction dust and operational modelling decide whether the assessment holds up.
Loft conversion using rooflights only: what the rules allow
Class C of the GPDO permits rooflights in a dwellinghouse roof where they project no more than 150 millimetres beyond the original slope. Here is how that interacts with head height, stairs, fire escape and conservation areas.
The Thames Policy Area and riverside development
The constraints on a Thames-side site are knowable before anyone draws a plan. River prospects, wharf safeguarding, the raised defence level and the river works licence.
Part allowed appeals and split decisions explained
Most descriptions of development are drafted as one indivisible proposal, which limits the inspector to all or nothing. How to keep elements severable, and how costs work.
Odour evidence for a bakery in a mixed use block
Establish the flue route before designing the system. Why 4am baking changes the assessment, and why a carbon filter with no replacement schedule stops working within a year.
An annexe for a dependent relative and its conditions
Separate metered supplies, a separate gate and a fenced garden turn an annexe into a second dwelling. What to show on the plans, and which condition wording to ask for.
Part 11 demolition: what the prior approval decides
The determination is narrow: method and restoration, nothing else. What belongs in the method statement, why conservation areas are outside it, and the 28 day silence rule.
Nitrogen deposition on habitats from changed traffic flows
Most sensitive habitats are already above their critical load, so the question is whether your scheme's contribution matters. The screening route and the in-combination trap.
Daylight baseline choice when the site is already cleared
Open sky as a baseline makes almost any building look harmful. The demolished building makes it look benign. Report the primary baseline and label every alternative.
Electricity grid capacity and when it stops a scheme
Capacity is a deliverability problem, not a policy objection. What to ask the network operator, how to read an offer, and how phasing conditions should be drafted.
Walkthrough: a self build house on a brownfield paddock
Land last used for agriculture is not previously developed land, whatever the hardstanding suggests. An illustrative walkthrough through the history research, ecology, drainage and access.
Protected London squares under the 1931 Act
Planning permission does not authorise what the 1931 Act prohibits. What the schedules protect, the use and structure restriction, and the four consent regimes that overlap.
Refused for being outside the settlement boundary
Two different arguments answer a boundary refusal: no conflict, or conflict outweighed. The evidence each needs, and why isolated does not mean outside the boundary.
Ecology evidence for a redundant barn surveyed in winter
A winter roost assessment establishes suitability and field signs but cannot establish absence. How to report the limitation, and when a deferral condition is wrong.
Garden rooms as home offices and the incidental use limit
Class E allows buildings incidental to the enjoyment of a dwellinghouse. Where a home office crosses into a separate use, and the height and boundary limits that catch most garden rooms.
New flats above commercial premises under Part 20
The upward extension right is real but narrow. Age limits, three separate height controls and a long list of prior approval matters decide most sites before design starts.
Biomass and solid fuel in a smoke control area
The Clean Air Act and planning are separate controls, and you can satisfy one while breaching the other. What exempt listings actually say, and where flue height rules bite.
Daylight to inset balconies and the overhang problem
Balconies are the daylight input most often left out of the model. Why the slab above a window matters more than a building across the street, and what recovers the light.
Heat network priority areas and what they oblige
Priority areas are a planning expectation; zoning under the Energy Act 2023 is a duty. The difference decides what evidence a major application has to carry.
Walkthrough: a shop converted to two flats above and below
An illustrative mixed use conversion, followed from the frontage policy through the space standards and the daylight and noise evidence to the conditions on the decision notice.
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